David Harris
Nationally Acclaimed Program Earns $120,000 in Grants: Create Your Jewish Legacy Asks Community Members to Secure Future Today
On February 7 at a packed seminar at Rockdale Social Hall, David Harris, Manager of the Create Your Jewish Legacy (CYJL) program, announced the program’s successes as of January 2017. Create Your Jewish Legacy, the community-wide legacy gift program, is the local manifestation of a five-year national push by LIFE & LEGACY, a program of the Harold Grinspoon Foundation, to promote legacy giving in Jewish communities.
CYJL Teams Surpass 2016 Goals
Cincinnati’s first group of 12 CYJL teams burnished their national reputation earned last year as the most successful of forty Jewish legacy programs with two solid wins this year for the community.
First, the twelve teams participating in the first cohort achieved their 2016 goals, specified as the number of people who committed to leave gifts through wills, trusts, retirement accounts, or other mechanisms. As nationally recognized charitable gift expert and guest speaker Bryan Clontz told the gathering, “Your program here has achieved a ridiculously successful number of gifts: 755 commitments through 435 donors in the last two years.”
Second, as of January 2017, all 12 teams have hit the LIFE & LEGACY goal for their second year in a row, and should each receive the Grinspoon Foundation’s $10,000 incentive grant for the second year. “That’s $120,000 for our Jewish community now,” said Harris. “In addition, two teams—Jewish Cemeteries of Greater Cincinnati and Cincinnati Hebrew Day School—achieved 100 percent board participation. Mazal tov!”
Program is Growing and Energized
“The community is really behind this initiative right now,” Shep Englander, Jewish Federation of Cincinnati CEO, said in introductory remarks to the group, which included a new, second cohort of 11 teams who started their two-year training in November 2016, and who will now begin having legacy conversations with members of their organizations and constituencies.
Community leader and CYJL Committee member Elinor Ziv concurred, “It’s energizing to see so many people excited about Create Your Jewish Legacy. It is the future of the community.”
A Rising Tide Lifts All Ships: Program’s Unique Collaboration Helps Everyone
Unique to the program is the way the teams work together collaboratively to offer prospective legacy donors the chance to give not just to their own organization, but to all the organizations they care about. Thus all Cincinnati’s Jewish organizations and agencies are working together. Create Your Jewish Legacy Chair Bill Freedman spoke to this collective effort, saying, “I know I have secured at least three legacy commitments for organizations in the room today. That’s why this campaign has succeeded so well, because you become a spokesman for the Jewish community as a whole.”
Another aspect of CYJL’s success, according to Harris, is the forward-thinking style of Jewish Federation support. “The Federation here is innovative and unique in integrating legacy giving into its overall fundraising model, in accord with the latest fundraising best practices,” said Harris. “Many other Federations are anxious to learn from our example.”
At its core, though, CYJL is about community. “Ensuring a vibrant, sustainable Jewish community will encourage our children and grandchildren who have left to return, as well as retain talent that has come here, and encourage them to remain a part of Cincinnati,” said Harris. “This is one of our Cincinnati 2020 goals, and a community-wide effort that Federation, our agencies, congregations, day schools and community members have prioritized.”
The teams in cohort 1 are: Adath Israel Congregation, Cedar Village Foundation, the Center for Holocaust and Humanity Education, Cincinnati Hebrew Day School, Cincinnati Hillel, Congregation Beth Adam, Jewish Cemeteries of Greater Cincinnati, Jewish Family Service, K.K. Bene Israel/Rockdale Temple, the Mayerson JCC, Northern Hills Synagogue, and Rockwern Academy.
Joining them as Cohort 2 are: Camp Livingston, Cincinnati Community Kollel, Congregation Etz Chaim, Congregation Sha’arei Torah, Congregation Zichron Eliezer, Hillel at Miami University, Halom House, JEEP!, JVS Career Services, Temple Sholom, and Valley Temple.
You can contact any of the team leaders here.
Create Your Jewish Legacy is run by the Jewish Federation of Cincinnati and is also supported by The Jewish Foundation of Cincinnati and seven private families. Inspired by a lead gift from David and Nancy Wolf, six additional families are contributing significant resources toward this effort to ensure our future as an exceptional Jewish community. The other six donor families are Bob and Suzi Brant, Louis and Beth Guttman, Sandy Kaltman and John Isidor, the Steiner Family Foundation, the Gerald Robinson family, and one anonymous donor.
